Settlement of the area began in the early 19th century and by 1820, it was populated by people from Scotland and the north of Ireland. There is uncertainty about the origin of the name Ormstown, possibly a distortion of "
Ormiston", a Scottish village. Around 1860 it was also called Durham. In 1808, a sawmill was built, followed by a Presbyterian church in 1829 and an Anglican church in 1832. In 1836, the Ormstown Post Office opened, and in 1846, the Catholic parish was established under the name Saint-Malachie-d'Ormstown, in honour of
Saint Malachy. In 1845, the Municipality of Ormstown was founded, but dissolved in 1847. In 1855, it was reestablished as the Parish Municipality of Saint-Malachie-d’Ormstown. In 1889, the main town centre split off to form the Village Municipality of Ormstown. In the 1950s, Ormstown became the site of a significant
microwave radio relay station, part of the
Trans Canada Telephone System. Initially, the system passed through the major cities of Canada via towers located on top of downtown telephone buildings. Subsequently, concerns were expressed that a disaster affecting any of those city cores, such as a war or uprising, would result in an interruption of the continuity of the transcontinental communications system. The solution was to locate a "bypass" microwave site outside each of those cities with links to the east and west, as well as a short link into the city. The Ormstown facility was the bypass point for Montreal, but had further significance as it also included a link to the
AT&T Long Lines TD2
microwave system in the United States. In 2000, the village municipality merged with the surrounding parish municipality of St-Malachie d'Ormstown to form the Municipality of Ormstown. ==Geography==